


Lazy

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friendship, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-06 01:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10322318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: First of all: Kozume Kenma is not lazy.Second of all: That's it. That's all he has to say.





	1. Case One: Small Children and Assertive Boredom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dgalerab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/gifts).



The day was hot. Sweltering. The kind of hot where, in wandering outdoors, sweat quickly dominated the entirety of the unfortunate wanderer. Except it was hot inside as well, and there was a running risk of mingling with everyone else’s sweat there, which is even worse. Being outside was just barely the better option with, at the very least, an occasional breeze. Kuroo Tetsurou was supposed to be relaxing, not asking the gods what he had done to deserve such hatred in all his 17 years.  
  
Kuroo had the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes like if he applied enough pressure, the sun would disappear. “How on earth—” he said loudly, just as one of the two-year-olds playing tag almost tripped over his sprawled legs. He lifted his hands and propped himself on his elbows, too hot to be startled but still wanting to make sure he didn’t hurt the kid. He turned his head toward Kenma after tracking his cousin for a heartbeat or two and started over, slightly quieter this time. “How on earth are you wearing a sweatshirt?”  
  
Kenma couldn’t reply before Kuroo’s mother honed in on them. “Up up up!” Masami Kuroo clapped her hands with the repetition. “I need help with the melon, and you’re just lying here complaining, come on.”  
  
A small, apologetic smile fluttered onto Kuroo’s face as he pried himself from the ground to a stand. He leaned down to plant a sweaty kiss to the crown of Masami’s head and she swatted at him. “Right away,” he said, and he turned as Masami urged him back into the house. “Want me to bring you some, Kenma?” he asked, and Kenma nodded, eyes on his phone as he scraped the fringe sticking to his forehead away and sunk into his sweatshirt. The corners of Kuroo’s eyes scrunched a little, and he jogged to catch up with his mother.  
  
The members of his family were either doing exactly what he had been doing—spreading out in the shade—or trying not to look so pinched under the sun as they socialize with glasses practically melting in their own condensation. The kids, of course, were playing around, and some had wandered into the overgrown bushes in a desperate bid to do something but also get out of the glare. Kuroo anticipated poison ivy. It was gonna be great.  
  
As his mother equipped him with a knife and melon, he squinted out the window to see a step-sibling hold out a soccer ball to Kenma. “Is he comfortable? He could come help.” asked Masami, busying herself sharpening a lesser-used knife and bringing up a shoulder to wipe away the beading sweat on the side of her face. Kuroo was glad to see she wasn’t wearing makeup—if only for the sake of her shirt.  
  
“I think so. He can handle himself. How thick do you want these cuts?”

  


By the time the melons had been seeded and sliced, Kuroo felt like he was wearing a shirt that just came out of the wash, and his eyelids felt sticky along with his hands. Masami had to keep swatting at him, her usual gesture of affectionate reprimand, because he kept cutting off bits for himself. He tried offering some to her, laughing, and she only flicked water in his face.  
  
“I hear they have private pools in America. In their back gardens,” he told her, stacking slices on a plate (she kept adjusting them, though, dissatisfied with his placement), “None of this kiddie pool stuff. Isn’t that weird to—”  
  
A high pitched whine erupted from near his side, a small hand tugging at the hem of his shorts. “What, what?” he said, his expression sparking in curiosity as he leaned down, extracting his hands from the plate of melon—Masami piled the rest on and stepped back out into the back yard. “What’s wrong, Yasu-chan?”  
  
“Your friend is boring,” she protested, brown eyes earnest and wide. Kuroo’s face shifted into something almost delighted.  
  
“Is he?”  
  
“He won’t play!”  
  
“Well, maybe he’s tired,” Kuroo suggested, moving to the sink to wash off his hands. Yasu padded after him. She pursed up her small mouth and pouted, big.  
  
“Or lazy.”  
  
A laugh unfurled from his chest and Yasu complained louder, tugging at her ears and telling him he was laughing too loud. “He’s not lazy, Yasu-chan,” he chided after a breath. “No one wants to play in this kind of heat. Not even me.” Leaning far down again so he could maneuver her small shoulders, he turned her about and marched with her back into the yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to fxvixen <3  
> It's been a really, really long time since I've written anything Haikyuu!! and I have never written for Kuroo or Kenma before so god help me.  
> Edit: Was trying to get this out last night and missed a few verb tenses and whatnot, so those are fixed! If you catch anything else, let me know!


	2. Case Two: He's Still Upset About the Mochi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tussle and evidence of at least two dropped conversations.

Kuroo hadn’t had to do the dishes since he was twelve, when the growing pains had begun to show something more than yawns. He knew of no one else who had been kept up at night because of the aches, and though the fact that Kuroo was taller than most would have been a handy explanation, growing pains had nothing to do with actually growing. In any case, his step-father’s home was a bit older, so while it gave them a fairly generous back garden, comparatively, that meant it was absent of a dishwasher. The washing sink was not at a comfortable height for tall people, and though it was fine for rinsing off, bending himself over it for long periods of time was a recipe for a bad crick in the neck.  
  
So he was the plate-bearer for his half-brother Masao, who admittedly suffered from a height complex at the ripe age of 12. Sango, his step-sister, was drying dishes since there were far too many for the hanging racks, and Masami and his step father were tidying the garden. The day had cooled down with the near-setting sun, the breeze having had pleasantly picked up a little.  
  
Kenma was in the corner, sweatshirt tied around his waist now that everyone had left. He knew Kuroo’s immediate family well enough that he was playing with Norio openly, PSP set aside in favor of the cat. For such a long day, he didn’t seem to be too tired.  
  
Kuroo had no desire whatsoever to compel him out of his corner to help, but Masao seemed to have a different idea. Leaning around Kuroo to get Kenma in his sights, he waved a hand dripping with soapy water. “Hey, lazy-butt!” Kenma’s eyes flicked up just as Norio attacked his hand, a scrunched nose turning a tad more dramatic as he batted Norio away gently. “Can you bring those dishes o-ow! Tetsu, agh!”  
  
Masao’s sudsy fingers slipped against Kuroo’s headlock, black hair that had initially been a bit more organized than Kuroo’s turning abruptly into a fluffed mess under the scrub of his knuckles.  
  
“Call Kenma lazy again, you punk,” Kuroo threatened, grinning near-savagely.  
  
“He’s just sitting there—ow! Ow! Let go!” Kuroo had levered him backwards and was wrestling him into submission. The only thing Masao had over Kuroo was angry determination. But Kuroo was taller, bigger in general, older, and just a tad on the irritated end of things after a day of sweating his ass off while distracting his cousins and arguing with Yasu over Kenma’s temperament at length. He had given up when she had started pestering him about his feelings for his best friend. It was a low blow for a five-year-old who still said boys were gross.  
  
“He’s a guest,” Kuroo gritted out, pinning Masao to the floor.  
  
“Guests don’t take _my_ mochi without asking and _eat_ it!” Masao protested loudly, and Kuroo burst out laughing, smothering out Masao’s indignance with unruly cackles.  
  
Skirting the two of them, Kenma held out the dishes that had caused the tussle. “Thank you, Kenma-san,” Sango said delicately. She moved to replace Masao’s position at the sink and took the proffered dishes with only a slight quirk of her lips.

  


“I can’t believe Masao bit me,” Kuroo said mildly, melting into the night’s summer breeze and the pool of purring cat on his stomach. Given that Kuroo could smell his own dried sweat, biting someone of his own state hardly sounded appealing.  
  
“Maybe you shouldn’t have sat on him,” Kenma suggested, the glare of his screen flickering across his features. He’d pulled his hair back so the wind wouldn’t be such a bother, and the clicking of his PSP’s buttons was a soothing sound among the crickets.  
  
“He deserved it.”  
  
The stars were dim with all the light pollution and Kenma’s game so close to both their eyes, but it was still nice.  
  
It was silent for a while between them, and Kuroo idly pet Norio until Kenma turned his console off with a soft click. “I’m tired,” Kenma said and began to sit up, reaching for Norio so Kuroo wouldn’t upset him when he followed suit. Norio purred loudly against Kenma’s throat—he was an especially affectionate cat, which was good for Kuroo, probably. He’d bought the kitten himself just a year or two ago when someone by the school was selling them out of a soggy cardboard box.  
  
After Norio had permitted himself to be set down and Kenma had collected his things, they made the rounds around the house, sliding the amado closed. It wasn’t a particularly lengthy process, but it allowed some time for thinking; Kuroo was specifically involving himself in figuring out what he had done to allow Yasu her conclusions regarding his affections. He liked to think he was inconspicuous, but he wasn’t willing to compromise being genuine around his best friend—it was not the easiest thing to balance.  
  
“You don’t have to do that, you know.” Kenma’s hair was still in a sloppy ponytail, but the sides were falling out to hide his periphery, and Kuroo didn’t try to force Kenma into eye contact as they closed the last section. The interruption was almost too appropriate, but Kenma couldn’t read his mind, so Kuroo just made a small humming sound, gnawing on his lips quietly as he tried to figure out which thread of conversation it was that Kenma was picking up.  
  
“Close up?” Kuroo asked finally, hesitantly, hands sliding themselves into the back pockets of his shorts as they circled back around to the garden to enter from the back and lock up. His eyes touched the barely-visible part of Kenma’s hair, dark already, though he’d bleached it again a week or so ago.  
  
Kenma didn’t answer aside from a small pinch of his mouth that suggested that was not it, and though Kuroo wasn’t absolutely positive what Kenma was trying to find the words for in particular, he didn’t mind waiting. As it was, Kenma simply didn't get to that point, and there was a certain brand of hesitance at the corner that would remind Kuroo to ask later.  
  
“There’s a game I want to get,” Kenma said, instead.  
  
Kuroo remembered, and pushed back his hair like it would actually do anything but make his bedhead worse. “We can stop by Media-land when we head back tomorrow,” he suggested.  
  
“Tokiwa Musen.”  
  
“Oh, okay.” Kuroo’s smile was big, and Kenma tugged at the knotted sleeves of his sweatshirt. “That one’s closer anyway,” said Kuroo, and exchanged his shoes for slippers. Either Sango or Masao had pulled out Tetsurou’s futon and the spare, and the fusuma had been closed already for a back room. Kenma plugged in his devices quietly as Kuroo dragged the futons where he wanted them, nabbing only a couple of blankets. It was still absurdly warm, and the amado were blocking out the breeze now.  
  
Some twenty minutes of getting ready for bed later and all the lights turned off, Kuroo slumped to claim the entirety of his futon.  
  
“G’night, Kenma,” he said to Kenma’s wiggling toes as Kenma tapped out a last message on his phone, eyes lit up by the screen.  
  
The tapping stopped, and it was the only indicator for when Kuroo had finally fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks for fxvixen <3  
> This chapter took _so_ much longer than it should have because I realized I had made several mistakes regarding the canon and general likelihood. Hopefully ya'll don't catch anything too suspect, but if you do, feel free to bring it up. I've already manhandled the crap out of this chapter. It can handle a bit more, I'm sure.  
>  (I know, I know—how the hell am I taking a week and a day to get these itty chapters out?)  
> (... I don't know, guys. Either way, I hope you enjoyed.)


End file.
